Grey Days

Chapter One: The Old Widow

The old widow comes to the cemetery every day.

I watch her from my window, since my orphanage is right next to the cemetery (yes, I know, a building full of bunch of kids with dead parents right next to a burial ground, not the best option). I peek through my curtains, though there's no point because they're ripped to hell and back.

Old people are usually welcoming and have kind eyes. This old woman has a scowl planted on her face, one that's enough to send chills down my spine with just one look.

Maybe it's a widow thing.

How do I know she's a widow?

Well, when I went to see whose damned grave she was always visiting, the tombstone read Wayde Blackwood, January 23rd 1869–July 4th, 1949. At the time, I had immediately noticed Wayde Blackwood is quite a Witchy name, and the day he died was the day my parents died. But apart from that, I just assumed he was her husband.

She carries a red rose with her—as always. She drops it to the same grave every day, and by now, the tombstone is surrounded by roses—some alive and well and others dying and wilted. She looks around—almost suspiciously—and I duck, hoping that she doesn't see me.

The room is small, there are two beds for five girls and this window is tiny, it barely lets me see a sliver of the real world. It's quite high up too, so I stand on a wooden stool. However, the stool isn't stable and it's three-legged (nobody knows what happened to the fourth leg, I've only heard horror stories).

We take turns sleeping on the floor, laying blankets beneath us and shivering throughout the night. Our stuff is cluttered across the floor: Marlene's lipsticks and vivid eyeshadows, Poppy's scarves and sunglasses, Titania's old wooden dolls, Fallon's dirty paintbrushes and watercolour works, and my novels, bookmarked with anything but a bookmark.

"Uh, Azalea, what in God's name are you doing?"

The voice makes me jump, and I lose my balance on my stool. I fall hard, landing on the cold, hard ground. I land on my bum, like I used to all those years ago in the summer. I throw my head back and curse—now my bum bones will be sore.

I look up at my interruption: Fallon. She's one of the girls I like here, because she's quiet and kind, and her hair is orange and she always smells like raspberries. But I do not appreciate being interrupted while I try to figure out how to make this not look as bad as it is.

"Fallon!" I say. "Did you have to sneak up on me like that? My bum bones are sore now!"

"Okay, but why were you looking out the window?" she asks. "Or hiding beneath the window...?"

"Unimportant," I say, scrambling to my feet. "Why are you sneaking up on me?"

"I forgot my watercolours," she says. She takes them from her bed, though it's going to be mine tonight. "Go back to...whatever it was that you were doing."

I climb onto the stool again, but the old widow is gone. I hop off the stool, almost tripping over my own feet. I throw myself onto a bed, pick up my copy of Pride and Prejudice and continue where I left off.

***

"Why are you always reading that same book?" Marlene asks. It's almost dinner time and the five of us are in our room, doing as we please. I've been reading for the past few hours, Fallon's painting something that she refuses to show us, Marlene's giving Titania a "makeover," and Poppy's getting ready to go meet the paperboy.

"It's a good book," I say, a bit annoyed at Marlene for interrupting me.

"Yeah, but you read it way too much," she says, swiping red lipstick across Titania's lips. "You've probably got every line memorised by now. Read something else."